Chapter 22: Embers

After an unknown amount of time passed, Lex headed back to the others, and Nathan accepted the request at a later meal. They had started training the day after, and their practices consisted of a bunch of body weight exercises they had to repeat for a stupidly high amount of times. They were to do push-ups. When they couldn’t to proper ones anymore, they should do them on their knees. When they couldn’t do them on their knees, they should push their chest up while lying on the ground. Mercilessly, he lead them to feel muscle failure in every part of their body. But with a new found motivation, the friends were able to endure for the first day. For the second day. For the third day. And from the fourth day on, they slowly started to question the practices, as their bodies deterioated rather than becoming stronger, and he did not teach them a single fighting exercise. By now, they’ve been training for an entire week.

Lex brings Nathan his meal as usual.

“If you keep this up, it won’t be much longer until I can’t bring you any meals. How can you train with us and still train here afterwards?”

“Practice. The way I am training you now is almost useless to me, but I am doing it anyway to show you that it is possible.”

She sits down next to him on his boulder, again, and he scoots over, again, just a little less than last time.

“You seem more invested in training us than anything I’ve seen before.”

“If I am going to do something, I will either do it right, or -”

“Or not at all, huh? I think putting in real effort is better than halfassing things, too. But you’ll still not get it right more often then you do.”

Nathan stares at his ground, and his blank expression slowly starts become interpretable to Lex.

“Well, anyway, it’s time for question of the day. What’s your favourite food?”

“What is my favourite food… I do not really have one that stands out that much from any others.”

“You’ve gotta have something? Remember, the deal was for you to answer honestly.”

“Maybe.. carrot cake? I probably like that one the best.”

Lex puts on a bright smile.

“See, you do have something you enjoy.”

She only receives silence as answer to that. But to her surprise, Nathan is the one to break it. “Why are you so interested in those mundane questions about me? My favourite training exercise, my favourite colour-”

“You still haven’t answered that one yet!”

“I still do not particularly like any colour better than the others.”

“Is there a colour you dislike then?”

His gaze sharpens for a moment, but relaxes an instant later. “You have had your question for today.”

“Alright, I’ll leave you alone before that lunch gets cold.”

Lex turns away, and walks back to her house, feeling really startled, but struggling to put her finger on why. ‘Was this the first time he asked me a question? No.. that’s not it. Is it the first time he asked something about me?’

While walking deep in her thoughts, she has left Nathan himself a little startled as well. ‘So you get to answer one question a day, but when I ask a single one, you disappear? That does not seem fair to me.’

When Lex arrives at the doorstep, all her friends are waiting at the dining table, their bodies lumping down.

“So, what did he say?”, Marc asks her.

Lex snaps out of her thoughts immediately when hearing that question. “Oh crap, I forgot to ask.”

Kaze looks at her like she just spoke in a foreign language. “How the hell would you forget the one question that’s plagued all of us for days?!”

“I’m sorry, okay? I was kind of distracted and it just completely slipped my mind.” She sits down with the others.

Elaine shoots up out of her chair. “What the fu did he do to you that you even forgot your own devastated body?”

“I was just lost in thought! And what’s that question even supposed to mean, huh? I’ll just go back and ask him right now, okay?”

Marc lets out an overly loud sigh of disappointment. “Don’t bother. Just ask him tomorrow when we have ‘training’ again.”

“If he doesn’t tell us why the fuck we’re doing all this stupid exercise without any time to regenerate, I’m just gonna quit.”, Kaze adds.

Lark glares at him. “You’re gonna quit, man? Just like that? He must have something in mind, he wouldn’t spend all this time doing this with us if he just wanted to see us suffer. How can you give up so fast after all that’s happened?!”

Kaze can’t be bothered to get as riled up as his friend. “It’s not like I want to give up training. Maybe he’s just the wrong teacher, the chosen one has got to have a different body than us mere mortals.”

Marc and Elaine nod in agreement.

Lark gets up from the table. “If you can barely last a week of being worked to the bone, then you’ve got no one else to blame but yourself if people die in your hands!” He storms up the stairs.

Visibly infuriated, Kaze wants to yell back, but Marc stops him by placing his hand on his shoulder. “Don’t. You know he doesn’t mean it.”

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Elaine leaves the table as well, following Lark upstairs.

“I know…”

The next morning, the group meets up with Nathan, on a small plain next to the hills that surround their homes. They train just the same as the days before, sweating buckets and breaking every single fibre of muscle, and potentially more, in their bodies. Over and over Nathan has to motivate them to keep going, to push just a little harder, only leaving Lark on his own. As they finish, everbody except for Lex leaves, stumbling every few steps as their feet can’t manage to find any stability with their shivering legs. She just keeps lying on the floor. Nathan looks at her, and then throws his watter bottle next to her.

“Drink some water. You look like you are on the verge of passing out.”

She stretches her neck to be able tolook up at him. “Who’s fault do you think that is?”

“I am not forcing you to do anything.”

“You get pretty close to it when you scream at us, you know? But, that’s actually not why I stayed here.” She sits up, and takes huge gulps out of the water bottle. “I’m here because we all want to know what this training is even supposed to do for us. We’re definetely not building strength right now, I’ve never felt so weak my entire life. The number of repetitions we’re capable of doing shrinks daily. Do you just plan to reduce our workout time so that you have to waste less time?”

“While that is actually not that dumb of an idea, no, that is not what I am doing. And you are growing stronger, you are building discipline and willpower.”

She throws the bottle back to Nathan, but it lands two meters in front of him on the ground. “Sorry. But is that really all that you’re doing? Isn’t there some way to train as that’s more useful?”

“Maybe I just want to see who is willing to stick with actual hard practice.”

“That’s not really what I had hoped to hear.”

“If you are not ready to give it your all, give up. I expect at least one of you to keep pushing though, so our deal is not going to break.”

She keeps silent after that, and just remains sitting on the floor. After some time, Nathan becomes irritated. “Is there anything else you wanted to say?”

“Oh, no, I’m just.. sitting. I really don’t want to start walking back right now, it’s even more daunting alone.”

“I will be going then.”

He leaves her alone, and she remains in that position for what were probably hours before going home. There, her friends are once again eagerly awaiting her at the table.

Elaine would jump her as she opens the door, but she doesn’t have the energy to do so. “What the hep happened? Did he DISTRACT you again?”

“Please tell me you’ve at least thought about asking when you’ve been gone for hours.”, Kaze adds.

Marc and Lark both appear to be in their own thoughts.

“Oh, I’ve actually asked him right away, and he left right after. But motivating myself to get back alone wasn’t so easy.” She glares at Marc, who, in turn, snaps back to reality, like feeling a dangerous presence staring him down.

“You’ve got yourself to blame for this, since you were the one who forgot yesterday.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just because none of you have got the balls to ask him yourself.”

Kaze looks at Lex with puppy eyes. “I know, we need you to help us. So, what did he say?”

“Basically that this is more of a mental exercise, and that he wants to see who can stick with it.”

“So that bastard really didn’t train us properly!”

Marc is too exhausted to even complain about it. “I had guessed it would be something along those lines. So, how much time do you want to give him until he really starts training us?”

Lark awakens from the world of thoughts upon hearing that question. “I’ll give the guy as much time as it takes. When he actually starts training us, that’s going to more than make up for the time we spend now.”

“That’s if he actually starts training us. Kaze, what do you say?”

“One more week. If two weeks aren’t enough for him, he can screw off.”

“Elaine?”

She nods.

“And what about you, Lex?”

“I’m with Lark on this one. I believe he’ll come around to train us eventually.”

“Of course you do…” Sigh. “One week it is. If he doesn’t start training us properly in one week, we’ll have to find another way. Maybe you two will see it differently by then, too.”

Lark looks at him with almost a bit of anger. “Doubt it.”

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